‘How trite and feeble and conventional the tunes are; how sentimental and vapid the harmonic treatment, under its disguise of fussy and futile counterpoint! … Weep over the lifelessness of the melody and harmony, so derivative, so stale, so inexpressive!’ Such was the verdict of the New York Tribune on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, in a scathing review of the premiere in February 1924. Yet Gershwin’s piece is today considered to be a pioneering example of symphonic jazz and, with the passage of time, it becomes ever harder to recapture just how provocative and controversial the idea seemed at the time.
Gershwin would soon be no stranger to tetchy reviews. Four years later, the New York Telegram dismissed his An American in Paris as ‘nauseous claptrap, so dull, patchy, thin, vulgar, long-winded and inane that the average movie audience would be bored by it… This cheap and silly affair seemed pitifully futile and inept.’ As late as 1935, fewer than two years before Gershwin’s untimely death from a brain tumour at just 38, New York’s Herald Tribune described the vocal ribed the vocal numbers in Porgy and Bess – destined to become some of the best-loved songs of all time – as the new opera’s ‘cardinal weakness’ and the ‘blemish on its musical integrity’.
この記事は BBC Music Magazine の February 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は BBC Music Magazine の February 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Discovering Donizetti - Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day
Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day. For most people, undertaking a lockdown project meant learning to bake sourdough bread, getting fit with Joe Wicks, or taking up a language. But Professor Roger Parker, the eminent historian of Italian opera and emeritus professor at King's College London, had something far more ambitious in mind. He set about unearthing songs by Gaetano Donizetti - many of which had been lost since the composer's lifetime - and the enterprise turned into a two-year labour of love.
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Symphonies Beside the Sea- Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction
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Västra Karup Sweden
The spirit of soprano Birgit Nilsson is alive and well in the town of her birth, home to a festival dedicated to her memory
Federico Colli
\"At this moment in time we don't need more virtuosi. We need musicians to engage with the philosophy of music
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What happens when classical music-style levels of ambition, invention and sheer length are brought to pop? The answer, as Meurig Bowen explains, is Prog Rock
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